Comment Re:The Once and Future CPU (Score 1) 474
No, it has not. In the 1980s, 1990s, and early 00s, when clock speeds were doubling every 18-24 months Intel and the PC industry used Moore's Law as synonymous with doubling of performance in general and doubling of the clock speed specifically. Here is an example of this usage from the first paragraph of the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) 2010 report Sustaining Growth in Computing Performance authored by dozens of top figures in the chip industry and academic research.
http://sites.nationalacademies...
Fast, inexpensive computers are now essential for nearly all human endeavors and have been a critical factor in increasing economic productivity, enabling new defense systems, and advancing the frontiers of science. But less well understood is the need for ever-faster computers at ever-lower costs. For the last half-century, computers have been doubling in performance and capacity every couple of years. This remarkable, continuous, exponential growth in computing performance has resulted in an increase by a factor of over 100 per decade and more than a million in the last 40 years. For example, the raw performance of a 1970s supercomputer is now available in a typical modern cell phone. That uninterrupted exponential growth in computing throughout the lifetimes of most people has resulted in the expectation that such phenomenal progress, often called Moore's law, will continue well into the future.
Note that they are defining and using Moore's Law in this general way. The exponential improvement in performance of CPUs between the 1970s and 2003 was due almost entirely to the remarkable increase in the clock speed of the CPUs, not the number or density of transistors.
Since 2003 when clock speeds largely topped out, Intel and other chip companies have labored to distract attention from the clock speed. Why buy a new chip that is no faster than a chip from 14 years ago? Clock speeds have disappeared from the prominently displayed technical specifications displayed with PCs at stores and other venues. "Experts" are suddenly adamant that Moore's Law has nothing to do with clock speed: wherever did you get such as silly idea?
The reality is that the semiconductor technology has hit fundamental limits as frequently happens in the technology S curve seen in many historical technologies. Most probably a fundamentally new technology is needed -- much as jet engines are fundamentally different from propeller engines driven by internal combustion engines.